


Holiday Observation

by earlybloomingparentheses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Ficlet, First Kiss, from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 07:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlybloomingparentheses/pseuds/earlybloomingparentheses
Summary: Luna thinks that quite possibly there is nothing more beautiful than the back of Ginny Weasley’s head.





	Holiday Observation

Luna thinks that quite possibly there is nothing more beautiful than the back of Ginny Weasley’s head. 

Ginny’s wild curls are pinned up in a roll at the nape of her neck, somewhere between loose and messy. Copper strands are escaping every which way. Each one is lit up like a halo, burnished in the glow of the floating candles. Ginny’s soft silver dress has a scoopneck and Luna can see the faint trail of freckles scattered across her back. The clusters of freckles, the strands of hair: there is something mesmerizing about how small they each are, how fine, how delicate; but how many there are, too. Uncountable.

Ginny is anything but delicate but she does have places that hurt sometimes. She doesn’t like to show them to people, but Luna can see. Luna can see a lot of things. It isn’t that she purposely cultivates a head-in-the-clouds aura, but the expectation that she’ll be staring into space ninety percent of the time does allow her to look at things for longer and more closely than others do. It’s good for observing strange phenomena, like Nargles or the almost certainly coded patterns of bare tree branches in the fall. And like the back of Ginny Weasley’s head.

Watching Ginny doesn’t correspond to any expectations or even concrete desires for action. Luna does sometimes think about touching those freckles, very gently, with her fingers. But Luna imagines a lot of things that will never happen. Most of her life thus far has been watching things, in fact, and trying to work them out in her head.

Her father taught her that way. Quiet observation.

“Hey, Luna.”

She blinks. So much for watching. Somehow in her contemplation, she had missed Ginny turning around and walking her way. 

“Hello.” She smiles at her friend.

Ginny smiles back. The front of her head is almost as beautiful as the back.

“Did you see? It’s snowing.”

Luna looks out the window, above the holly branches laid festively on the sill. Big wet-looking flakes are drifting down, pale against the dark sky. She looks back at Ginny, who’s faintly flushed with wine. A curl has escaped and is falling over her face. The front of her head actually might be more beautiful than the back, Luna thinks. There’s really something to be said for those lips. Not to mention the very slightly crooked angle of her nose. 

“I like your dress,” says Ginny. Luna blinks. If it were anyone else, she’d think she was being made fun of. Her dress is floor-length, with a pattern of Christmas lights charmed to blink on and off at random. Her father gave it to her. Luna loves anything her father gives her, even if does make her look like a Muggle stoplight.

“Thank you,” she says politely.

“What are you up to, over in this corner by yourself?”

“Observation,” she replies.

Ginny squints her eyes, crinkling them at the corners, and cocks her beautiful head. “Want to tell me what you were observing?” she asks. 

Though it hadn’t crossed Luna’s mind that she might do such a thing, it doesn’t now cross her mind that perhaps it would be better not to.

“You.”

Ginny’s eyebrows shoot way up. “Me? What was I doing that was observation-worthy?” 

Luna waves a hand vaguely. She does feel herself going a bit pink. “Oh, just…”

What Luna had forgotten is that Ginny is quite good at observation, herself. 

A grin breaks across Ginny’s face suddenly. It’s not just her hair that looks lit up from within. Definitely the front of her head, Luna thinks hazily, most of her attention focused on the rapidly closing distance between them. 

“I hadn’t realized,” Ginny says, face quite close to Luna’s now. She’s still smiling, like she really is pleased to find out that Luna has been counting the uncountable hairs on her head and freckles on her skin. “So, do you want to do more than just…observe?” 

Her voice is half fond, half suggestive. She puts a hand around Luna’s wrist and squeezes. Luna flushes quite strongly, now. 

“The visual is really only one aspect of observation,” she says, voice a little hoarse. “Quite a limited one, actually.” 

“Yeah. I agree. Touch is more thorough, isn’t it?” And Ginny raises her hand to Luna’s cheek.

Holding her breath, Luna moves her own hand to the back of Ginny’s neck. She can’t feel the freckles, of course. But that doesn’t make touching them any less wonderful.


End file.
